Texas pardons longest-serving inmate freed by DNA

DALLAS 
A Texas man who spent more time in prison than any other inmate before being exonerated by DNA evidence was pardoned by Texas Gov. Rick Perry on Wednesday, clearing the way for him to collect millions of dollars from the state.

James Woodard's conviction was set aside 18 months ago after DNA testing showed he didn't commit the 1980 murder for which he had spent nearly three decades in prison. The Innocence Project said his 27 years behind bars edges out Charles Chatman, a Dallas man also cleared by DNA evidence, for the record.

Woodard was the boyfriend of the victim, who was found sexually assaulted and strangled. One of two eyewitnesses recanted her testimony, and subsequent DNA testing showed Woodard did not commit the sexual assault.

Texas enacted a law this year making its compensation for wrongly convicted people the most generous in the nation. They receive $80,000 for each year of incarceration, plus a lifetime annuity. In Woodard's case, that totals about $4.3 million.

Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins and a state district judge wrote letters supporting giving Woodard a pardon for innocence, which was recommended unanimously by the state Board of Pardons and Paroles.

"My action today cannot give back the time he spent in prison, but it does end this miscarriage of justice," Perry said in a statement.

The pardon makes Woodard the 39th person cleared by DNA evidence in Texas, a nationwide high, according to the Innocence Project, a New York legal center that specializes in overturning wrongful convictions.

For years, Woodard wrote to court officials asking them to re-examine his case.

"This couldn't happen to a more deserving guy," said Woodard's attorney, Innocence Project of Texas Chief Counsel Jeff Blackburn. "He is a remarkable guy who fought his own case, all along, with no one listening to him for 20-some years."

Woodard is one of 21 wrongly convicted Dallas County men whose convictions have been set aside after DNA testing. Prosecutors plan to retry one of those cases.